Oh, I mis-spoke, I thought this was about fighting Rats
Posted on 03/25/2008 10:55:02 AM PDT by neverdem
We won! That is, the forces of science-based public health policy seem to have won -- if not the war, at least a major battle. At long last, federal risk assessors and regulators have come around to the view that administering chemicals to rodents in super-high doses does not reliably predict human risk -- of cancer, or anything else -- and that a better method needs to be employed, if we are to avoid more unnecessary bans, anti-chemical media hysteria, and activist crusades.
High dose animal tests on one rodent species don't reliably predict cancer risk in another rodent type, much less in humans. The same tests for "carcinogens" that are used to condemn synthetic chemicals also give false positive findings for a whole spectrum of natural substances that we safely eat, breathe, and drink every day.
The sort-of good news is that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just announced a new collaboration: the development of a "new paradigm" for testing potentially toxic chemicals. Drawing upon the unique testing methodologies to be found in their various sub-agencies, they plan to shift from testing chemicals on whole animals to testing the chemicals on cells and "isolated molecular targets," using high-speed, automated screening robots.
It sounds a bit science-fictiony -- a brave new world, perhaps, of chemical toxicity testing. Bypassing the high dose, long-term animal experimentation for test "subjects" -- cells -- in Petri dishes will undoubtedly save the government testers a lot of money (and also spare the lives of many rats and mice). But the real question is, will it bring some sense to the testing process for evaluating suspected chemical toxins?
ONE GOOD THING can be deduced from this new collegiality...
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
aspartame (nutrasweet) certainly needs to be given another look. or a serious look it never got in the first place.
Darn. I thought this was about somebody leaving the dem party. Instead, it’s about real rats.
Yes it does, especially in light of the rate of increase of autism.
Oh, I mis-spoke, I thought this was about fighting Rats
Third source of oceanic iron is found
No Bad Drugs - The arbitrary distinctions at the root of prohibition
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Thanks!
Cheers!
The Brain is one step closer to "Taking Over the World, Pinky!"
The bad:
White mice STILL cause cancer.
My prediction:
It will not pick up on a lot of physiological effects (changes in an entire organ system which then impinge on *another* system to produce side effects.
Cheers!
Hello, aspartame is deadly, and you don’t need rats to prove it.
At long last, federal risk assessors and regulators have come around to the view that administering chemicals to rodents in super-high doses does not reliably predict human risk -- of cancer, or anything else -- and that a better method needs to be employed, if we are to avoid more unnecessary bans, anti-chemical media hysteria, and activist crusades.Of course, there were also activist crusades against using animals to test for anything, part of the incoherent luddism of the left. Thanks neverdem.
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